Rating: 
Summary: a master a work
Review: A blurb on the back dubbed this "a swift, violent story". Yes! Bracing and breathtaking in its economy and speed. Apparently L'Etranger used this as its model. Whether or not you like the early 20c american school of minimalist, hard-boiled writing, this is worth reading for the invigorating pleasure of seeing an absolute master at work. Could be read at a single sitting.
Rating: 
Summary: Oldie, but a goldie...
Review: Classic ! A little old fashioned, but that's what's charming about the book. The story is well told. I was not disappointed...
Rating:
Summary: As intense and exciting as any crime novel I've read
Review: Despite only taking a few hours to complete, this was as intense and exciting as any crime novel I've read. James M. Cain manages to squeeze a whole novel's worth of characters, plot twists, and emotions into only 116 pages. Like Ernest Hemingway, Cain employs a minimalistic writing style to fashion uneducated, "simple" characters with complex emotional undercurrents. He knows when to understate a scene and when to use vivid, erotic images to shock his readers. His pacing is nearly flawless, except for one awkward scene with the briefly-mentioned Madge Allen character. And the conclusion, while somewhat of a cliche, is typical of the best 1930's roman noir fiction. The only reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of 4 is that I wish Cain had added more dialogue and development scenes at the beginning to show how Frank and Cora fell in love and fed off each other's neuroses.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book...
Review: If your interested in the genre of crime fiction, this book is a mandatory read. For those of you who are not deeply entwined in the genre, thankfully this book is not long, only a 140 pages. And so even if you are or are not a big fan of crime fiction, this book is at most a two afternoon or two evening read. Your time will not be wasted if you choose to read this book, but I do think, because of the long sequences of dialogue that the film may be a better choice for one seeking entertainment.
Regardless of what you choose, its a good book...
Rating:
Summary: lean and mean
Review: Like reading about crimes of passion? This is it! Like a hard punch between the eyes. Cain was a master at this type of sordid tale. Noone does it better. Noone.
Rating:
Summary: The Kicking Off Place For Noir Fiction
Review: No sense chewing the same fat twice (I covered the "basics" in reviewing Double Indemnity), but a few additional points should be made. In Double Indemnity we have the same story as Postman. Instead of a drifter, vapid vixen vamp loser, and a cafe owner, we had an insurance salesman, sexy seductress, and a wealthy businessman. The plot? Same thing: the meeting, the sparks, the plan to kill the obstructionist interloper, the plan going bad, the consequences. But, here was the birth of the noir genre. The seed was planted, the flowering from which inspired a multitude of thriller fiction writers to follow--up to, and including, the present day. For this we owe James M. Cain a deep debt of gratitude.Reflecting the despair, desperation, near-panic atmosphere of the Great Depression, Postman does a better job than do the affluent characters of Indemnity--the impact is more surreal, more profound, more lasting. (This, in sharp contrast to the joyous, "there's a better day coming" gospel of the happy-face Warner Bros. and MGM musical extravaganzas of that period.) Cain also established a milestone in dialogue in his books, particularly this one: let 'er rip, don't let spoken comments attributions get in the way, just get out of the way and let the action (much of it consisting of pure dialogue) build, swell, and burst with an eruption of meanng. I have long thought that James M. Cain's contribution to American literature was not only the "Birth of Noir," but by presenting convincing evidence that minimalist writing--by way of vivid, gritty dialogue as the chef ingredient--was the best, to-the-point way to hone and present character--and, importantly, to move the story. Aspiring novelists can only benefit from studying Cain's techniques with a microscope.
Rating:
Summary: Don't tempt fate
Review: Opportunity may knock once, but fate may ring at your door more than once and has a strange way of turning on you. The characters in this story went about life without any consideration or thought for anyone but themselves and in doing so, set the stage for an almost comical tragedy! Though it's hard to feel sorry for the main character after his hand in murder, you still do, but only slightly! After all, he did tempt fate, and fate turned on him and gave him what he, and most of the others deserved. As for the writing, this book gave birth to a genre that we still enjoy today! Hard to believe that a story with the twists and turns of this one could be told so sparcely in words, and yet be so compelling in just over 100 pages! A glimpse into an earlier era, though not much in the way of moral evolution seems to have occured since this was written...
Rating:
Summary: A LUCKLESS DRIFTER, AN AMORAL WIFE, A RECKLESS MURDER
Review: Poolroom hustler, con artist, auto mechanic, bum--Frank Chambers, after being thrown off a hay truck he'd stowed away on the night before, wanders into the Twin Oaks Tavern and talks the owner into a giving him a free lunch. Then the owner offers him a job fixing cars. Frank hesitates. Then he sees the owner's wife. Frank takes the job.
Thus begins this tawdry tale of desperation, lust and lies. Published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its violence and eroticism, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" is like back alley fisticuffs--it ain't pretty, but it works.
"I sunk my teeth into her lips so deep I could feel the blood spurt into my mouth. It was running down her neck when I carried her upstairs."
No, this isn't "Romeo and Juliet." It's two careless people who somehow fall in love in spite of each other and then convince themselves they can get away with murder.
The results are less than spectacular.
This story is bare-knuckled, unflinchingly masculine, and briskly told in 116 pages. Frank Chambers himself narrates, peppering the narrative with 1930s colloquialisms and a drifter's outlook.
It's as American as a motorcycle cop on a California highway.
I should also state for the record, both movie versions of this book were terribly miscast.
Rating:
Summary: Intense and absorbing
Review: This is a book that never gives you a chance to catch your breath. More happens in 116 pages in this book than in most 500-page novels that I have read. James Cain doesn't mess around with flowery prose or deep narrative insights into the characters or the period or anything else. His writing is strictly minimalist, and that gives this book its raw, gritty feeling. You don't learn much about what's going on from some detached, third-person narrator. Instead, you get up close and personal with the characters themselves, who are all complex and fascinating.
Much of this book is dialog, often extending for pages without even a "he said" or "she said" interspersed between lines. Cain has a real gift for getting at the heart of his characters through dialog. The voices of the characters are so expressive that you really don't need much narration to get a good sense of what these people are all about.
At the heart of this story is an illicit love affair and a murder. There is an uncomfortable tension throughout the book, so strong that I wanted to put the book down at times to wipe the sweat off my forehead and let my pulse return to a normal rate.
Rating:
Summary: Despair and degradation as art
Review: This is a book you read once and can't stop thinking about. It's what I call a 'blue book', one that is soulful and strangely mellow. It actually makes me feel like I'm underneath a very shady tree on a sunny day. Reason being that the light is very blue green, so a 'blue' book. Before I try to make sense of this, let's continue. Frank Chambers is a young drifter who rolls into town, goes to work in a diner for Nick, a tough Greek, falls for Nick's young wife Cora, then decides, with Cora's help, to murder Nick and take over the restaurant. What should be simple becomes more complex. The first murder attempt fails, the second one is successful but easy to see through. With the help of a very smart and very crooked lawyer, both Frank and Cora are soon free. That, really, is where the problems start. Frank and Cora love and hate each other fiercely, speaking with remarkably accurate, real dialogue. Cain doesn't even attribute his dialogue, so pay close attention to who's speaking. The book is mostly just people talking, in very real language, full of slang and fragmented sentences. It's like listening to a REALLY interesting conversation. Frank and Cora are two very small, unremarkable, inconsequential people caught up in something too big for them to understand. They mistake happiness and hope for lust, hate, anger and even apathy. And just when things look alright, one little, honest accident washes it all away. This book shows us how fragile everything is, or at least how fragile it can be. That's what elevates this to the level of tragedy. This is something to live with and dwell upon, something you can never quite shake off, no matter how hard you try. (...)
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